


Flash Before Your Eyes

by VividSunsets



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Gen, if you've seen swr do not fear the warnings it's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 21:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19384675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VividSunsets/pseuds/VividSunsets
Summary: They say, when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Seventh Sister had never been on the receiving end of death before, and she didn’t expect the saying to be so literal.





	Flash Before Your Eyes

Seventh Sister stood victorious atop the third level’s steps. She’d succeeded in beating back Maul and Ezra, giddy with the joy of taking her own kill and stealing Eighth Brother’s. After this, assisting in the takedown of her targets, and giving the holocron to Lord Vader, she would be the surest candidate for the Grand Inquisitor position.

However, Maul was strong (how did the old bastard move like that even though he’d run up a flight of stairs?), and Bridger, she realized with a sickening lurch, matched her blow for blow, because they’d done this before and he was figuring out their pattern. However, this wasn’t fatal, and she could have continued the fight if she didn’t feel that familiar cold sensation of fingers closing around her throat, and just as she saw a bright spot where Bridger wasn’t able to kill her (typical Jedi, she’d thought, ready to reengage with her last strength), she saw an unmistakable light, felt a burning pain and then the lower half of her body hit the floor a second before her upper half. Typical Sith.

When she opened her eyes, Seventh Sister was in a birthing room on what she somehow knew was Mirial, a woman pushing a baby, her, she realized, out of her. She screamed and cried as she entered the world, a pathetic little thing. She heard her name too, and at that, her eyes went wide and she resigned herself to stand back, watch, and rediscover what else she’d forgotten.

Her early childhood passed in what seemed like a flash, but it was filled with a love that overwhelmed her. Her mother and father sang to her and bounced her on their knees and played with her and rocked her to sleep for hours when she cried. Overall, she was a happy baby, which amazed her to no end. Her parents knew she was Force sensitive, and were fine with the Jedi taking her. She resented that, knowing that the Jedi were evil, and wondering if she would have been happier had she never started down this path and stayed with her family.

When she joined her clan with numerous other children (gross, slobbery, clumsy, though admittedly endearing children), she was surprised to recall that she took well to playing with others as a child. The Jedi Masters who visited them, far from the image she had in her mind from the last decade or two, were kind and loving, telling the children stories about the Force and guiding them through the basic steps of meditation. She wondered where they all went wrong.

Her clan got older, and they took further steps into becoming Jedi. While not the best in her crowd at meditation, she wasn’t bad at sparring (she learned, pride glowing in her chest). Master Sinube guided them through forms, and she began forming friendships with the others. They’d apparently run around the Temple, exploring and seeking out all sorts of mischief--one time, they’d decided to go swimming in the Garden of a Thousand Fountains, which had earned them a scolding, but had left them laughing all the same. The reawakened memory brought out a hollow aching in her chest--when they were caught, they were all caught together, and apart from a slightly stern voice, they were barely admonished.

During this time, she saw the other inquisitors living their lives in the Temple--background characters to her story. She remembered barely recognizing any of them when they’d first met each other. Funny how a person can mean nothing as you pass them in a hallway, but thirty some years later, you could be striving toward the same end together, she thought.

She was independent in those years, deciding that, while she would get the tattoos that were traditional for her region of Mirial, different from Luminara’s (though, that was for later, when she’d had accomplishments), she’d forgo covering her hair. 

Eventually, she passed Initiate Trials. While she couldn’t beat the best in her class, she fought well, to the satisfaction of the present Jedi Masters. When her own Master (these memories started to rouse the dull ache in her chest to a pain), announced that she wished to have her as a Padawan, her heart (did she even have a heart anymore?) lept for, and she saw her younger self beaming.

Her Master was a kind, soft-spoken woman in her thirties, and though it was her first time taking a Padawan, she wanted to be completely sure of herself and her skills before she did, so she felt confident being taught by her. Indeed, though their personalities were vastly different, she learned well and quickly under her Master. 

Though her swordplay was getting better rapidly, she didn’t see a large enough gap between that point and her current level. She fought back the bile, as she knew what was in store to make it that way--both within the Jedi Order and the Inquisitorius.

She watched the good memories between her and her Master, shared moments meditating, training, laughing, questioning, trusting, and as she saw the years tick closer and closer to the Clone War, her stomach dropped. She and her Master went on a mission to oversee a tense situation between two planets in a system nearly at war over which one would claim a planet with plentiful ore. Her Master’s death wasn’t particularly cruel or vengeful--just a stray blaster bolt too many. Kills the best of Jedi, as she’d later find out. Pain ripped through their bond, and then she felt nothing. 

With a whirlwind of blocks that she was sure were brought on by adrenaline more than skill, and slightly more gratuitous slaughter than the Jedi would be okay with, she called the mission a failure and retreated. The Council couldn’t admonish her too much--after all, she’d lost her Master after barely two years of training, and they were supposedly grateful that she’d made it out alive.

After that, she became a ward of the Temple, hoping that she could find a Master to continue her training. Unexpectedly, she wasn’t angry, not at first. No, she was sad, and her old self, instead of harnessing those useful emotions, tried meditating her grief away. Didn’t work. So she threw herself into her training, which was difficult, considering that she could never ask a consistent Master for help. She kept up the physical aspect, sparred and did forms intermittently, and she got unsolicited advice on Force use anyway. 

A year passed, and still, “the Force had not willed” her to have a new Master (something she actually said in her youth, unbelievable, as though she herself could not control the Force and her own destiny). She’d taken to spending time in the Archives too, though not too often, because while she enjoyed learning, she wasn’t somebody who could read for hours on end. The anger started seeping into her now. She felt trapped, lost, and she knew that some of the finer points of her skill were waning without constant critique (‘get used to it,’ she wanted to tell her younger self. ‘The finer points of critique in your future will include your Master damn near killing you to make a point,’). Still, she waited and persisted. 

The Clone War began, and any hope she had of taking another Master was squelched at Geonosis, when hundreds of Jedi died due to the blunder of two. She lost the support network she’d built for herself, as fewer Jedi became available at the Temple to instruct her. She saw the possibility of Knighthood slipping away, and her anger blossomed. 

The second year of the war was a dark haze, which she was frankly amazed that barely any of the Jedi tried to see and remedy despite their “wisdom.” There were talks of her remaining a Padawan, how “the Force didn’t call her to Knighthood,” and they offered her various stations at the Jedi Temple. She told them she’d think about it.

The third year of the war is when she logically knew that her life would drastically flip, based on her knowledge of history alone. First, Darth Maul returns, and the fear in the Jedi Temple is palpable. She felt it thrum through her too, especially at the place where she’d been bisected, which was strange, considering that she felt both as though she had a physical form and had none. Then, Barriss Offee bombs the Jedi Temple, causing Ahsoka Tano to leave, and many Jedi to wonder when the war would end and why they fought. This year, it turned out, heralded many of her future messes and coworkers. At that point, her past self was completely disillusioned with the Order, considering it ineffective. She seriously contemplated following in Ahsoka’s footsteps. She still hadn’t considered following in Barriss’.

She researches the outside world, what kind of job she could do. She realizes that she’d make a decent private security guard, and she’d be alright at manual labor, though she’d hate it. She didn’t need to fall back on any of those options, however. A Temple Guard, under cover of darkness, asks her if she feels dissatisfied with the Jedi Order. Worried this is a trap, worried that the Jedi will kill her for the darkness within, she hesitates to answer. He says that she need not fear him, that he can show her power, a better option, that he felt the same. She listens.

She gets coincidentally sent on a mission on an unstable planet (now she knew where that coincidence came from, but her younger self could not suspect that it was so insidious), and she fakes her death. It’s easy--nobody cares enough about her to come looking. 

She waits in a designated meeting spot for two days in the freezing cold (on purpose, her present self suspects), before the Grand Inquisitor, still called First Brother at the time, picked her up.

Her system damn near went into shock when she went from the chill of that planet to the heat of Mustafar in one day, and that’s when she began to relive her torture in high definition. After a quiet assurance that this would be necessary for her to fully access her power and start her new life, she accepted, bracing herself for pain, but not knowing the scale of what she’d endure. For what must have been a month, she got thrown into death battle after death battle, tortured and exposed to the horrors of the galaxy, leaving her only with her ability to hurt and fight (and she knew that her ability to fight was probably stunted. She suspected the Emperor wanted it that way). 

She watched her body harden, her reactions quicken, her countenance shift, her heart harden, and after a month of pain, she emerged as Seventh Sister.

After that, she got handed her armor and was sent packing back to Coruscant, where she would continue her training until the Empire rose. On the transport there, she met the Fifth and Sixth Brothers, who’d apparently been taken for conditioning around the same time as she had. The three barely spoke to each other the entire way there--even she wasn’t talkative after what she’d just gone through. 

Eventually, she and the others established their usual raport--even dark beings such as themselves couldn’t brood quietly forever, and though they argued and frequently tried injuring each other and making their days worse, all was relatively normal under Sidious’ tutelage, hands-off as it was. 

Then, Vader arrived. All of his lessons were brutal, leaving bruises that didn’t go away for weeks (and a notable one that stayed for a month), culminating in a final one that left more of them than not with lightsaber gashes, but her injury came in the form of a nearly crushed windpipe and ruined vocal cords, after which time she had to be rushed into urgent care. The droids were under orders to use no anesthetics, so she had to lie perfectly still as her throat was cut open and prosthetic vocal cords were installed. She began to forget what mercy was after that point.

The lessons after that were relayed through the Grand Inquisitor, though Vader supplemented the occasional few. They became more ruthless after that, and the rule was “fight or be killed.” They finally started going on missions, picking off the Jedi that had escaped Order 66. She succeeded and she failed, but combined with the rest of the inquisitors and Vader, most Jedi were picked off. 

The missions after that were more specialized, but also more boring. Apart from a few exciting incidents with a Jedi nest, two inquisitors going rogue, a rather brutal fight with Quinlan Vos, and Unduli’s signature attracting a fair few solo Jedi, but even that trickled off after a while, leaving Master Sidious tasking them with other objectives that were universally hated. 

It stagnated this way for years, until a spark flared up on Lothal.

They hadn’t heard of a Jedi in years at that point, and here arose two, one for certain, another potentially. The Master was rusty with his lightsaber, according to the Grand Inquisitor, and the Apprentice was new. Very new. 

They were all eager, including her, but he claimed this kill as his, and while none of them had problems poaching from each other, nobody would be so foolish as to steal from the Grand Inquisitor, so they waited to see the development. 

The development, it turns out, was Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger (their names, as she found out) killing the Grand Inquisitor, leaving them without a leader within their ranks. While they had Vader, but he barely even acknowledged them anymore, save for giving orders, but there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Lord Sidious was aging, and while she wasn’t stupid enough to take him in a fight, Lord Vader, whom she’d seen take on more than half the inquisitorius without a scratch, who’d slaughtered most of the Jedi Order on his own, it seemed, may be able to. She could see him grow more restless, want for more power, and if he made the move, he would need an apprentice. The thought of being a Sith, not Sith-adjacent, not barely acknowledged, a Sith, frightened and excited her more than anything in her life. 

She wanted that position, and more presently, she knew that this pair of Jedi could lead to the mysterious Fulcrum, who she now knew to be Ahsoka Tano. She followed their scent and took off, waiting to catch them. She knew she had to be somewhat cautious if they could kill the Grand Inquisitor, but she figured she could manage, somehow.

She also realized she wasn’t the only one after the two, as Fifth Brother mucked up a perfectly good capture of Ezra and his cohorts (Sabine and Zeb, if she remembered correctly).

Despite their obvious reluctance, she teamed up with Fifth Brother to kill the Jedi, hoping that her competence would speak for itself when it came time for Vader to decide the new Grand Inquisitor. But, whether it be through sheer luck or their own lack of skill (both were sorely unprepared to fight Ahsoka Tano. Sorely), they managed to fail, every time.

They’d reached a bright spot when they got into the temple on Lothal, despite encountering an unsettling vision of the Grand Inquisitor and not finding the Jedi--they’d found a Jedi Temple that reeked of power. They knew it, Lord Vader knew it, and she figured Lord Sidious would be interested. For the first time in a long time, they had Lord Vader’s favor.

That changed as all hell broke loose when they tracked the pair (plus Ahsoka) to Malachor. She’d wondered aloud what a bunch of Jedi would want to do at a Sith Temple, when Fifth Brother pointedly reminded her of the holocron they’d been told about. Great. If there was a mystery or plot to solve, she could almost guarantee that these Jedi would find it. They always did. 

The trepidation they’d had about going on this mission (which they honestly should not have--the planet was strong with the dark side, giving them the upper hand, for once) was confirmed when they responded to Eighth Brother’s distress signal--of course that fool had managed to lose a fight where he had homefield advantage. 

As if their last few months hadn’t been strange enough, Maul made an appearance and beat them back from what probably would have been at least one Jedi down. She was still optimistic--three on four wasn’t horrible odds, and they’d signalled Vader, so if they could hold out for long enough, they may have been able to get rid of four of the Empire’s major problems in one day.

Her first mistake was believing they could hold out long enough.

They regrouped, separated, and after telling Fifth to let Eighth Brother get himself killed if he was going to be that brash about his attack, the two went on their separate ways once they saw the group had divided.

This next part of the story she remembered, crystal clear. 

Seventh Sister stood victorious atop the third level’s steps. She’d succeeded in beating back Maul and Ezra, giddy with the joy of taking her own kill and stealing Eighth Brother’s. After this, assisting in the takedown of her targets, and giving the holocron to Lord Vader, she would be the surest candidate for the Grand Inquisitor position.

However, Maul was strong (how did the old bastard move like that even though he’d run up a flight of stairs?), and Bridger, she realized with a sickening lurch, matched her blow for blow, because they’d done this before and he was figuring out their pattern. However, this wasn’t fatal, and she could have continued the fight if she didn’t feel that familiar cold sensation of fingers closing around her throat, and just as she saw a bright spot where Bridger wasn’t able to kill her (typical Jedi, she’d thought, ready to reengage with her last strength), she saw an unmistakable light, felt a burning pain and then the lower half of her body hit the floor a second before her upper half. Typical Sith.


End file.
